


In the Moonlight

by demonessryu



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Moon Landing, Mutual Pining, Possibly Inaccurate Astronomy, Possibly Inaccurate Natural Sciences in General, idk what else to tag but you can safely assume it's my usual bullshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 19:56:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19775311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonessryu/pseuds/demonessryu
Summary: Watching the moon landing made Roger and Brian contemplate what was possible between them.





	In the Moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> Huh. Apparently I (sort of) picked the right time to post it because it’s almost the 50th anniversary of the moon landing! I’d post it next week but I foresee myself being completely stressed out then. Edited while exhausted and in the company of mild vertigo. I may or may not have forgotten how English works midway through editing this. This fic is partially inspired by Sara Bareilles’ [Miss Simone](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12XAqIl06Ag), which is a lovely song and you should give a listen! Warning for possibly inaccurate rambling about astronomy etc.

“The moon, Rog! We’ve gone to the moon! What could be next? Mars? The asteroid belt? _Further_?”

Roger grinned as he opened the door to his flat. Brian had said many variations of this sentiment for the past few hours after they watched the moon landing at Roger’s mum’s. It was a subject Brian loved but Roger usually rolled his eyes at, as he neither shared nor understood Brian’s passion for astronomy and its related sciences. However, this time, having just seen the first time human set their feet (safely!) on a space object, even Roger felt his exhilaration. When they were watching the landing, their friends had tried to quiet Brian down when he started a monologue on the difficult and potentially dangerous feat the astronauts were attempting, their objectives, and the implications should they succeed, but Roger hushed them. He might not understand everything that Brian was saying, but he knew that this was an important event for him, so important it had put stars in his eyes, stole breath from his lungs, put smiles on his lips, evaporated his usual quietness and replaced them with joy never before seen. This was passion, pure and simple yet fundamental to life, and Roger wouldn’t let anyone ruin it for him.

“Where do you want to go?” Roger asked, leading Brian into the tiny living area.

“God, _everywhere_! There’s so much we don’t know yet that I want to learn about!” Brian answered with a small breathless chuckle, eyes sparkling with almost childish joy, making Roger want to pat his puffy hair in adoration. Brian looked around the empty flat, seemingly surprised to find himself there. Roger wouldn’t be surprised if he had completely forgotten the drive from Roger’s mum’s to his flat since he had been lost in his clever head all day, too excited about the moon landing to realize what was happening on the earth around him. “I’ll be right back,” he suddenly said.

Roger raised an eyebrow, but before he could ask, Brian had slipped out of his flat. He shrugged and sat down heavily on his battered sofa. After hours of listening to his friends’ chatters and then Brian’s reverent monologue, the silence of the empty space was deafening. He had half a mind to play one of his records – something fast and loud to remind him of the pounding of his heart as the spaceship slowly landed on the moon surface and the way Brian had tightly grabbed his arm in ecstatic anticipation (“Look! We’re almost on the moon, Rog! _The moon_!”) but felt that he had nothing that suited his mood. He was elated, true, knowing that a new age had begun, although he didn’t fully understand the implications, but he also felt strangely melancholic, increasingly realizing the enormity of the universe. Humanity had gone to the moon, but the moon was just the start. The universe was bigger than what they could see, bigger than what Brian and his smart professors knew. The earth was just a speck of dust in the grand scheme of things. And what was Roger? He could play his drums as loudly and quickly as the instruments could stand, scream as deafeningly as he could, dream as big as he dared to, but he was just an atom, if even that, compared to the universe. His problems, his aspirations, his views were microscopic no matter how he blew them out of proportion. Roger had always wanted to be bigger than life, bigger than what staying home would allow him to be. He wondered now, having been on his own in London, struggling to fit life, education and music into a small budget, how big a force he should be to make an impact on the world as he had always dreamt of doing, how much harder he should work to make it happen, and, most worryingly, whether it was possible at all to make it come true.

Roger sat in contemplative silence, lost in thoughts, until Brian returned, his curly hair a slight mess after being battered by the night wind and the climb to Roger’s second floor flat. But, he was still as animated as when he had left, eyes brightly sparkling and lips ceaselessly smiling as he brandished a bottle of wine. Roger had a few times called him a poodle, but despite what some people thought, he wasn’t being mean. Roger called Brian poodle because of times like this, times that didn’t happen often or long enough but Roger had caught a few times, when instead of careful reservation Brian displayed giddiness and unbridled happiness, when rather than awkward silence or unwelcomed orders he made Roger smile and laugh, when instead of keeping distance he drew Roger close to him. And of course because of his hair, but that goes without saying.

“Let’s celebrate it!” Brian announced with rare enthusiasm.

“Have you already drunk it?” Unable to resist him in this unusually happy mood, Roger laughed and went the kitchen. “I’ve got no fancy wineglass. Cups will have to do.”

Brian didn’t mind drinking from cups and Roger didn’t complain about the quality of the cheap wine. They sat by Roger’s narrow kitchen table, neither willing to move to the living area as Brian immediately launched into a lecture on the known and unknown universes, distant stars, mysterious black holes, coveted life-supporting planets, and objects the general public and media didn’t deem interesting enough for casual discussion but were in fact equally important parts of the infinite universe, each of them unique and irreplaceable elements that made up the space many loved and admired. Although Roger only listened intently and asked a few (probably stupid) questions, Brian wasn’t discouraged, explaining and answering with considerable enthusiasm. The wine loosened his tongue, but mostly he was drunk with the happiness of uncovering a new horizon and Roger couldn’t remember why they fought so much as he realized that their passions were two parallel lines.

Brian hoped to reach the stars; Roger hoped to be a star. Brian hoped to understand the universe; Roger hoped people would marvel at him. Brian spent hours every day observing and learning; Roger spent days building connections and developing calluses on his palms with relentless drumming. They both strived for their dreams, both wished to live and breathe their dreams, both were easily misunderstood – Brian because few were as smart as he and Roger because most realized being a famous musician was just a fantasy – and both didn’t give a toss about what people thought of what they loved. Their personalities often clashed – horrifically sometimes – that in truth Roger had been considering leaving Smile due to their frequent disagreements, had in fact been at the brink of telling Brian he would quit because they clearly didn’t get on well at all. But, right now he could only see how much of Brian he recognized and understood, right now he could only remember how everything seemed possible when they were together, right now he couldn’t think why he’d want to be away from him.

The small window above the sink drew Brian’s attention. He peered out and up toward the silvery moon. As he continued to gaze at it, a dreamy look passed his face, curling his lips gently the way love often did to lovers, and Roger suddenly found himself filled with envy. “I wonder what they’re doing up there now,” Brian wondered quietly with an air of innocence someone his age really shouldn’t still have. But, dreams and passion regressed, brought people back to the time when life was easy, when the world was simple, when there was no problem too tricky to overcome, when most of everything was happy. Roger blinked, suddenly realizing that it was exactly how he was feeling now, listening to Brian talking about something he actually had little care for and couldn’t begin to understand. And it wasn’t the subject of the conversation that brought the feelings on.

“Something exciting, I’d imagine,” Roger replied distractedly as he pondered which category Brian fell into for him: dream or passion?

Brian, who had from the beginning of the day been lost in his own thoughts of the expanding view of the universe, startled. He studied Roger carefully, trying to gauge whether a fight was coming. He knew his tendency to be lost in his own thoughts and boring people extensively, just as he knew Roger’s impatience and short temper. Brian had lost count of how many times they had fought in the past months, since they’d got to know each other, only knowing that there were enough to make him occasionally wonder why Roger still stayed in their little band. He fell quiet, not keen on starting yet another argument with Roger. Brian could control his temper reasonably well, but Roger didn’t even care to try, letting his anger burnt hotly and lengthily at a moment’s notice. It was easy to be frightened of and disliked him. Yet, Brian always forgave him, always tried to understand, always found himself helplessly adoring the young man who seemed to disagree with him at every turn yet oddly complement and understood him.

Brian took a deep breath. “I didn’t mean to bore you,” he ventured carefully, although he detected no (unfortunately familiar) tale-telling signs of Roger’s temper.

“I’m not bored,” Roger denied unexpectedly. “I don’t really understand what you’re saying, but it was quite exciting, the moon landing.”

“You think so?” Brian asked, genuinely surprised. He was used to scoffs and derisive comments. They didn’t hurt, at least not after a while, and he had had plenty of practice dismissing these things. Brian tried not to think of how when it was Roger who expressed the disinterest, it always cut a little deeper, hurt a little longer. “It’s just that you, well, you’re usually not interested in these things.”

Roger shrugged. “You usually make it sound boring.”

Brian knew this, had often seen people nodding politely but blankly as he spoke, had even found people making excuses to end their conversation. A lot of people were curious about space, but few were interested to hear the scientific details of it, and Roger was the impatient sort. He loved things that were fast and loud, fireworks rather than stars, supernovas rather than black holes. He would love meteor showers, Brian often thought but never dwelled on, for thoughts like this would make him want to take Roger to see one, then reminded him that Roger probably wouldn’t like going anywhere with him. Brian knew he could be dull and being around Roger made him realized this acutely and painfully. Some parts of him wished he could change, be someone Roger would like better, be someone that could fascinate Roger the way Brian was fascinated by him, but, whether Roger realized it or not, he and Brian were uniform in their stubbornness. For better or worse, there was no changing who they were.

“It’s not boring this time, though. I actually had fun watching it on the telly and, well.” Roger shrugged again, but this time there was a hint of hesitation in the gesture. “I like how excited you are about this. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so happy. I like that.”

When the words finally sank in, there was nothing Brian could do but breathe a quiet “oh.” Half buried fantasies resurfaced, feelings that he had hidden since that afternoon in the jazz club room came to the forefront of his mind, and the what-ifs returned to haunt him. All of these were exacerbated by the open expression Roger was giving him. It was an opportunity given, an opportunity he mustn’t take because everything could go wrong, because everything _had_ gone wrong – hadn’t he learnt it from his many fights with Roger? They were too different in all the best ways and too similar in all the worst. When two major forces collided, there was bound to be a disaster. Except that many good things had come out of it this time: their music, the way the noises they made gelled perfectly together, the laughter they shared when they weren’t fighting, valuable advices and opinions they sought from and gave each other, and undefined moments like this when time ceased and the world narrowed to only them. They could’ve ended in fire and brimstones, exploding bigger and louder and brighter than a supernova, hundreds of times by now, but they hadn’t and it gave Brian a sliver of hope he didn’t quite know what to do with.

Brian shouldn’t. He was well aware of Roger’s well-earned reputation and therefore knew how everything could potentially end (with boredom on Roger’s part, broken heart on Brian’s). There was also the fact that despite having mingled with all sorts of person in college, there still remained some aversion in him against being _too different_. Everything could end terribly, including the future he had studiously prepared for. But, Brian couldn’t deny that he thought of soft blond hair, big blue eyes, and smug smirks more often than strictly necessary. He couldn’t resist the allure of Roger’s rebellious streaks. He couldn’t help but be fascinated by the duality of a man coveting all the pleasures the world had to offer and the man who was happy to be in the simple company of close friends and a good book in his hands. Roger wasn’t what most people thought he was. Roger wasn’t what _Roger himself_ thought he was. Brian thought he knew Roger – or at least some part of him since they had only known each other for a few short months – and despite all of Roger’s flaws, he still could think of only very few men as good as him, and certainly no one else as infatuating as him.

Roger took a deep breath, maybe because Brian had said nothing for too long. “It’s late. Why don’t you stay the night?” he offered, his tone neutral yet laden with possibilities they didn’t dare say out loud. “The sofa’s too small for you, but there’s enough space in my room. We can drag the other mattress there.”

Roger was in between flatmates. The previous one had left a couple of weeks ago for a more convenient lodging and he was currently looking for a replacement. There was an empty room with a perfectly fine bed next to Roger’s that Brian could easily use without having to engage in late night physical labor. The proposition was completely unnecessary. But, did unnecessary mean unwanted?

They brought the mattress to Roger’s room. They dropped it a few times, limbs not fully cooperating under the influence of both wine and nerves, but succeeded in the end. Soon, Brian was laying on the mattress beside Roger’s bed, gazing up at Roger’s familiar face as he peered down at him. Nervous, Brian talked about the moon landing, the distant stars, the solar system, the dark matter, and the brilliant supernovas, but his mind was on how in the dimly-lit room Roger’s eyes were silvery like the moon and when he smiled they twinkled like the stars. He had to reach up to ruffle Roger’s hair at one point because the slight distance and temptation of touch were too much for him to bear. Scowling, Roger batted his hand away, but when Brian pulled it back, Roger’s hand followed. He put it next to Brian’s on the mattress, not touching, not tempting, just desperately longing.

In the late morning, Brian woke up to Roger’s smile. His golden hair, a halo around his head, was bright as the sun. Brian knew then he had found the center of his personal solar system.

**Author's Note:**

> Commas. How do they work? The last part was almost “… personal universe” but it doesn’t sound as nice in my head. I’m not 100% sure about switching central character in the middle of the fic. It’s a format I’ve been wanting to try because it offers a broader perspective of the story. What do you think? I have half a mind to continue this fic, but, uh, don’t hold your breath because I hardly have any chance to write these days.
> 
> For now I can still be found on [tumblr](http://demonessryu.tumblr.com/) where my stuff never shows up in the proper tag(s).


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